The present protocol presents a laboratory technique designed to study chaparral crown fire ignition and spread. Experiments were conducted in a low velocity fire wind tunnel where two distinct layers of fuel were constructed to represent surface and crown fuels in chaparral. Chamise, a common chaparral shrub, comprised the live crown layer. The dead fuel surface layer...

Culvert replacements are commonly undertaken to restore aquatic organism passage and stream hydrologic and geomorphic conditions, but their effects on ecosystem processes are rarely quantified. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of two culvert replacement designs on stream ecosystem processes. The stream simulation design, where culverts...

Abstract. Prescribed fire is a tool used to manage vegetation in southern California. The nature and quantity of gaseous and particulate emissions have not been described for California chaparral. A study examining carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and particulate matter emissions from fuel beds constructed from common chaparral shrubs was initiated. Chamise...

Leaf inputs in temperate forest streams may limit caddisfly production because leaf detritus serves both as a food and case-material resource. We estimated Pycnopsyche gentilis produdion in a stream experimentally decoupled fmm its riparian habitat and a reference stream for 8 y in the southern Appalachians. We also examined laboratory survivorship,...

Dimensional analysis has potential to help explain and predict physical phenomena, but has been used very little in studies of wildland fire behavior. By combining variables into dimensionless groups, the number of variables to be handled and the experiments to be run is greatly reduced. A low velocity wind tunnel was constructed, and methyl, ethyl, and isopropyl...

Dalmatian and yellow toadflax are aesthetically pleasing weeds wreaking havoc in rangelands across the western United States. These non-native forbs spread rapidly into fields following fire, tilling, construction, or other disturbances. They are successful and stubborn invaders, producing massive quantities of seeds each year and rapidly re-sprouting from root...

We measured breakdown rates of leaves and small wood for the first three years in a stream in which detrital inputs were excluded for 7 years and in a reference stream located in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, USA. Leaf and wood inputs were excluded using a gill-net canopy constructed over a 170-m section of stream. We hypothesized that red maple (

Wildfire usually promotes flooding and accelerated erosion in upland watersheds. In the summer of 1999, a high-severity wildfire burned a series of mixed pine/oak headwater catchments in the San Jacinto Mountains of southern California. Log erosion barriers (LEBs) were constructed across much of the burned area as an erosion control measure. We built debris basins in...